Part 4

For a week that's all they could make out of it, and then, with Regan scratching his head over it one day in confab with Carleton, the superintendent, it came more by chance than anything else.

"Blamed if I know what to make of it!" he growled. "Ordinary, six men's words would be the end of it, but Owsley's the best man that ever latched a throttle in our cabs, and for twenty years his record's cleaner than a baby's. What he says now don't count, because he ain't right again yet; but what you can't get away from is the fact that Owsley's not the man to have slipped a signal. Either the six of them are doing him cold to save their own skins, or there's something queer about it."

Carleton, "Royal" Carleton, in his grave, quiet way, shook his head.

"We've been trying hard enough to get to the bottom of it, Tommy," he said. "I wish to the Lord we could. I don't think the men are lying--they tell a pretty straight story. I've been wondering about that patch Owsley had on his eye, and----"

"What's that got to do with it?" cut in the blunt little master mechanic, who made no bones about his fondness for the engineer. "He isn't blind in the other, is he?"

Carleton stared at the master mechanic for a moment, pulling ruminatively at his brier; then--they were in the super's office at the time--his fist came down with a sudden bang upon the desk.

"I believe you've got it, Tommy!" he exclaimed.

"Believe I've got it!" echoed Regan, and his hand half-way to his mouth with his plug of chewing stopped in mid-air. "Got what? I said he wasn't blind in the other, and neither he is--you know that as well as I do."

"Wait!" said Carleton. "It's very rare, I know, but it seems to me I've heard of it. Wait a minute, Tommy." He was leaning over from his chair and twirling the little revolving bookcase beside the desk, as he spoke--not a large library was Carleton's, just a few technical books, and his cherished Britannica. He pulled out a volume of the encyclopedia, laid it upon his desk, and began to turn the leaves. "Yes, here it is," he said, after a moment. "Listen"--and he commenced to read rapidly:

"'The most common form of Daltonism'--that's color-blindness you know, Tommy--'depends on the absence of the red sense. Great additions to our knowledge of this subject, if only in confirmation of results already deduced from theory, have been obtained in the last few years by Holmgren, who has experimented on two persons, each of whom was found to have _one color-blind eye_, the other being nearly normal."

"Color-blind!" spluttered the master mechanic.

"In one eye," said Carleton, sort of as though he were turning a problem over in his mind. "That would account for it all, Tommy. As far as I know, one doesn't go color-blind--one is born that way--and if this is what's at the bottom of it, Owsley's been color-blind all his life in one eye, and probably didn't know what was the matter. That would account for his passing the tests, and would account for what happened at Elbow Bend. It was the patch that did it--you remember what he said--the light was white as the moon."

"And he's out!" stormed Regan. "Out for keeps--after forty years. Say, d'ye know what this'll mean to Owsley--do you, eh, do you? It'll be hell for him, Carleton--he thinks more of his engine than a woman does of her child."

Carleton closed the volume and replaced it mechanically in the bookcase.

Regan's teeth met in his plug and jerked savagely at the tobacco.

"I wish to blazes you hadn't read that!" he muttered fiercely. "What's to be done now?"

"I'm afraid there's only one thing to be done," Carleton answered gravely. "Sentiment doesn't let us out--there's too many lives at stake every time he takes out an engine. He'll have to try the color test with a patch over the same eye he had it on that night. Perhaps, after all, I'm wrong, and----"

"He's out!" said the master mechanic gruffly. "He's out--I don't need any test to know that now. That's what's the matter, and no other thing on earth. It's rough, damn rough, ain't it--after forty years?"--and Regan, with a short laugh, strode to the window and stood staring out at the choked railroad yards below him.

And Regan was right. Three weeks later, when he got out of bed, Owsley took the color test under the queerest conditions that ever a railroad man took it--with his right eye bandaged--and failed utterly.

But Owsley didn't quite seem to understand--and little Doctor McTurk, the company surgeon, was badly worried, and had been all along. Owsley was a long way from being the same Owsley he was before the accident. Not physically--that way he was shaping up pretty well, but his head seemed to bother him--he seemed to have lost his grip on a whole lot of things. They gave him the test more to settle the point in their own minds, but they knew before they gave it to him that it wasn't much use as far as he was concerned one way or the other. There was more than a mere matter of color wrong with Owsley now. And maybe that was the kindest thing that could have happened to him, maybe it made it easier for him since the colors barred him anyway from ever pulling a throttle again--not to understand!

They tried to tell him he hadn't passed the color test--Regan tried to tell him in a clumsy, big-hearted way, breaking it as easy as he could--and Owsley laughed as though he were pleased--just laughed, and with a glance at the clock and a jerky pull at his watch for comparison, a way he had of doing, walked out of Riley's, the trainmaster's office, and started across the tracks for the roundhouse. Owsley's head wasn't working right--it was as though the mechanism was running down--the memory kind of tapering off. But the 1601, his engine--stuck. And it was train time when he walked out of Riley's office that afternoon--the first afternoon he'd been out of bed and Mrs. McCann's motherly hands since the night at Elbow Bend.

Perhaps you'll smile a little tolerantly at this, and perhaps you'll say the story's "cooked." Well, perhaps! If you think that way about it, you'll probably smile more broadly still, and with the same grounds for a smile, before we make division and sign the train register at the end of the run. Anyway, that afternoon, as Owsley, out for the first time, walked a little shakily across the turntable and through the big engine doors into the roundhouse, the 1601 was out for the first time herself from the repair shops, and for the first time since the accident was standing on the pit, blowing from a full head of steam, and ready to move out and couple on for the mountain run west, as soon as the Imperial Limited came in off the Prairie Division from the East. Is it a coincidence to smile at? Yes? Well, then, there is more of the same humor to come. They tell the story on the Hill Division this way, those hard, grimy-handed men of the Rockies, in the cab, in the caboose, in the smoker, if you get intimate enough with the conductor or brakeman, in the roundhouse and in the section shanty--but they never smile themselves when they tell it.

Paxley, big as two of Owsley, promoted from a local passenger run, had been given the Imperial--and the 1601. He was standing by the front-end, chatting with Clarihue, the turner, as Owsley came in.

Owsley didn't appear to notice either of the men--didn't answer either of them as they greeted him cheerily. His face, that had grown white from his illness, was tinged a little red with excitement, and his eyes seemed trying to take in every single detail of the big mountain racer all at once. He walked along to the gangway, his shoulders sort of bracing further back all the time, and then with the old-time swing he disappeared into the cab. He was out again in a minute with a long-spouted oil can, and, just as he always did, started in for an oil around.

Paxley and Clarihue looked at each other. And Paxley sort of fumbled aimlessly with the peak of his cap, while Clarihue couldn't seem to get the straps of his overalls adjusted comfortably. Brannigan, Owsley's old fireman, joined them from the other side of the engine. None of them spoke. Owsley went on oiling--making the round slowly, carefully, head and shoulders hidden completely at times as he leaned in over the rod, poking at the motion-gear. And Regan, who had followed Owsley, coming in, got the thing in a glance--and swore fiercely deep down in his throat.

Not much to choke strong men up and throw them into the "dead-center"? Well, perhaps not. Just a railroad man for forty years, just an engineer, and the best of them all--out!

Owsley finished his round, and, instead of climbing into the cab through the opposite gangway, came back to the front-end and halted before Jim Clarihue.

"I see you got that injector valve packed at last," said he approvingly. "She looks cleaner under the guard-plates than I've seen her for a long time, too. Give me the 'table, Jim."

Not one of them answered. Regan said afterward that he felt as though there'd been a head-on smash somewhere inside of him. But Owsley didn't seem to expect any answer. He went on down the side of the locomotive, went in through the gangway, and the next instant the steam came purring into the cylinders, just warming her up for a moment, as Owsley always did before he moved out of the roundhouse.

It was Clarihue then who spoke--with a kind of catchy jerk:

"She's stiff from the shops. He ain't strong enough to hold her on the 'table."

Regan looked at Paxley--and tugged at his scraggly little brown mustache.

"You'll have to get him out of there, Bob," he said gruffly, to hide his emotion. "Get him out--gently."

The steam was coming now into the cylinders with a more businesslike rush--and Paxley jumped for the cab. As he climbed in, Brannigan followed, and in a sort of helpless way hung in the gangway behind him. Owsley was standing up, his hand on the throttle, and evidently puzzled a little at the stiffness of the reversing lever, that refused to budge on the segment with what strength he had in one hand to give to it.

Paxley reached over and tried to loosen Owsley's hand on the throttle.

"Let me take her, Jake," he said.

Owsley stared at him for a moment in mingled perplexity and irritation.

"What in blazes would I let you take her for?" he snapped suddenly, and attempted to shoulder Paxley aside. "Get out of here, and mind your own business! Get out!" He snatched his wrist away from Paxley's fingers and gave a jerk at the throttle--and the 1601 began to move.

The 'table wasn't set, and Paxley had no time for hesitation. More roughly than he had any wish to do it, he brushed Owsley's hand from the throttle and latched the throttle shut.

And then, quick as a cat, Owsley was on him.

It wasn't much of a fight--hardly a fight at all--Owsley, from three weeks on his back, was dropping weak. But Owsley snatched up a spanner that was lying on the seat, and smashed Paxley with it between the eyes. Paxley was a big man physically--and a bigger man still where it counts most and doesn't show--with the blood streaming down his face, and half blinded, regardless of the blows that Owsley still tried to rain upon him, he picked the engineer up in his arms like a baby, and with Brannigan, dropping off the gangway and helping, got Owsley to the ground.

Owsley hadn't been fit for excitement or exertion of that kind--for _any_ kind of excitement or exertion. They took him back to his boarding house, and Doctor McTurk screwed his eyes up over him in the funny way he had when things looked critical, and Mrs. McCann nursed him daytimes, and Carleton and Regan and two or three others took turns sitting up with him nights--for a month. Then Owsley began to mend again, and began to talk of getting back on the Limited run with the 1601--always the 1601. And most times he talked pretty straight, too--as straight as any of the rest of them--only his memory seemed to keep that queer sort of haze over it--up to the time of the accident it seemed all right, but after that things blurred woefully.

Regan, Carleton and Doctor McTurk went into committee over it in the super's office one afternoon just before Owsley was out of bed again.

"What d'ye say--h'm? What d'ye say, doc?" demanded Regan.

Doctor McTurk, scientific and professional in every inch of his little body, lined his eyebrows up into a ferocious black streak across his forehead, and talked medicine in medical terms into the superintendent and the master mechanic for a good five minutes.

When he had finished, Carleton's brows were puckered, too, his face was a little blank, and he tapped the edge of his desk with the end of his pencil somewhat helplessly.

Regan tugged at both ends of his mustache and sputtered.

"What the blazes!" he growled. "Give it to us in plain railroading! Has he got rights through--or hasn't he? Does he get better--or does he not? H'm?"

"I don't know, I tell you!" retorted Doctor McTurk. "I don't know--and that's flat. I've told you why a minute ago. I don't know whether he'll ever be better in his head than he is now--otherwise he'll come around all right."

"Well, what's to be done?" inquired Carleton.

"He's got to work for a living, I suppose--eh?" Doctor McTurk answered. "And he can't run an engine any more on account of the colors, no matter what happens. That's the state of affairs, isn't it?"

Carleton didn't answer; Regan only mumbled under his breath.

"Well then," submitted Doctor McTurk, "the best thing for him, temporarily at least, to build him up, is fresh air and plenty of it. Give him a job somewhere out in the open."

Carleton's eyebrows went up. He looked across at Regan questioningly.

"He wouldn't take it," said Regan slowly. "There's nothing to anything for Owsley but the 1601."

"Wouldn't take it!" snapped the little doctor. "He's got to take it. And if you care half what you pretend you do for him, you've got to see that he does."

"How about construction work with McCann?" suggested Carleton. "He likes McCann, and he's lived at their place for years now."

"Just the thing!" declared Doctor McTurk heartily. "Couldn't be better."

Carleton looked at Regan again.

"You can handle him better than any one else, Tommy. Suppose you see what you can do? And speaking of the 1601, how would it do to tell him what's happened in the last month. Maybe he wouldn't think so much of her as he does now."

"No!" exclaimed Doctor McTurk quickly. "Don't you do it!"

"No," said Regan, shaking his head. "It would make him worse. He'd blame it on Paxley, and we'd have trouble on our hands before you could bat an eyelash."

"Yes; perhaps you're right," agreed Carleton. "Well, then, try him on the construction tack, Tommy."

And so Regan went that afternoon from the super's office over to Mrs. McCann's short-order house, and up to Owsley's room.

"Well, how's Jake to-day?" he inquired, in his bluff, cheery way, drawing a chair up beside the bed.

"I'm fine, Regan," said Owsley earnestly. "Fine! What day is this?"

"Thursday," Regan told him.

"Yes," said Owsley, "that's right--Thursday. Well, you can put me down to take the old 1601 out Monday night. I'm figuring to get back on the run Monday night, Regan."

Regan ran his hand through his short-cropped hair, twisted a little uneasily in his chair--and coughed to fill in the gap.

"I wouldn't be in a hurry about it, if I were you, Jake," he said. "In fact, that's what I came over to have a little talk with you about. We don't think you're strong enough yet for the cab."

"Who don't?" demanded Owsley antagonistically.

"The doctor and Carleton and myself--we were just speaking about it."

"Why ain't I?" demanded Owsley again.

"Why, good Lord, Jake," said Regan patiently, "you've been sick--dashed near two months. A man can't expect to get out of bed after a lay-off like that and start right in again before he gets his strength back. You know that as well as I do."

"Mabbe I do, and mabbe I don't," said Owsley, a little uncertainly. "How'm I going to get strong?"

"Well," replied Regan, "the doc says open-air work to build you up, and we were thinking you might like to put in a month, say, with Bill McCann up on the Elk River work--helping him boss Polacks, for instance."

Owsley didn't speak for a moment, he seemed to be puzzling something out; then, still in a puzzled way:

"And then what about after the month?"

"Why then," said Regan, "then"--he reached for his hip pocket and his plug, pulled out the plug, picked the heart-shaped tin tag off with his thumb nail, decided not to take a bite, and put the blackstrap back in his pocket again. "Why then," said he, "you'll--you ought to be all right again."

Owsley sat up in bed.

"You playing straight with me, Regan?" he asked slowly.

"Sure," said Regan gruffly. "Sure, I am."

Owsley passed his hand two or three times across his eyes.

"I don't quite seem to get the signals right on what's happened," he said. "I guess I've been pretty sick. I kind of had a feeling a minute ago that you were trying to side-track me, but if you say you ain't, I believe you. I ain't going to be side-tracked. When I quit for keeps, I quit in the cab with my boots on--no way else. I'll tell you something, Regan. When I go out, I'm going out with my hand on the throttle, same as it's been for more'n twenty years. And me and the old 1601, we're going out together--that's the way I want to go when the time comes--and that's the way I'm going. I've known it for a long time."

"How do you mean you've known it for a long time?" Regan swallowed a lump in his throat, as he asked the question--Owsley's mind seemed to be wandering a little.

"I dunno," said Owsley, and his hand crept to his head again. "I dunno--I just know." Then abruptly: "I got to get strong for the old 1601, ain't I? That's right. I'll go up there--only you give me your word I get the 1601 back after the month."

Regan's eyes, from the floor, lifted and met Owsley's steadily.

"You bet, Jake!" he said.

"Give me your hand on it," said Owsley happily.

And Regan gripped the engineer's hand.

Regan left the room a moment or two after that, and on his way downstairs he brushed the back of his hand across his eyes.

"What the hell!" he growled to himself. "I had to lie to him, didn't I?"

And so, on the Monday following, Owsley went up to the new Elk River road work, and--But just a moment, we've over-run our holding orders a bit, and we've got to back for the siding. The 1601 crosses us here.

Superstition is a queer thing, isn't it? Speaking generally, we look on it somewhat from the viewpoint of the old adage that all men are mortal save ourselves; that is, we can accept, with more or less tolerant condescension, the existence of superstition in others, and, with more or less tolerant condescension, put it down to ignorance--in others. But we're not superstitious ourselves, so we've got to have something better to go on than that, as far as the 1601 is concerned. Well, the 1601 was pretty badly shaken up that night in the spill at Elbow Bend, and when they overhauled her in the shops, while they made her look like new, perhaps they missed something down deep in her vitals in the doing of it; perhaps she was weakened and strained where they didn't know she was; perhaps they didn't get clean to the bottom of all her troubles; perhaps they made a bad job of a job that looked all right under the fresh paint and the gold leaf. There's nothing superstitious about that, is there? It's logical and reasonable enough to satisfy even the most hypercritical crank amongst us anti-superstitionists--isn't it?

But that doesn't go in the cabs, and the roundhouses, and the section shanties on the Hill Division. You could talk and reason out there along that line until you were blue in the face from shortness of breath, and they'd listen to you while they wiped their hands on a hunk of waste--they'd listen, but they've got their own notions.

It was the night at Elbow Bend that Owsley and the 1601 together first went wrong; and both went into hospital together and came out together to the day--the 1601 for her old run through the mountains, and Owsley with no other idea in life possessing his sick brain than to make the run with her. Owsley had a relapse that day--and that day, twenty miles west of Big Cloud, the 1601 blew her cylinder head off. And from then on, while Owsley lay in bed again at Mrs. McCann's, the 1601, when she wasn't in the shops from an endless series of mishaps, was turning the hair gray on a despatcher or two, and had got most of Paxley's nerve.

But what's the use of going into all the details--there was enough paper used up in the specification repair-sheets! Going slow up a grade and around a curve that was protected with ninety-pound guard-rails, her pony truck jumped the steel where a baby carriage would have held the right of way; she broke this, she broke that, she was always breaking something; and rare was the night that she didn't limp into division dragging the grumbling occupants of the mahogany sleepers after her with her schedule gone to smash. And then, finally, putting a clincher on it all, she ended up, when she was running fifty miles an hour, by shedding a driving wheel, and nearly killing Paxley as the rod ripped through and through, tearing the right-hand side of the cab into mangled wreckage--and that finished her for the Limited run. Do you recall that Owsley, too, was finished for the Limited run?

Superstition? You can figure it any way you like--they've got their own notions on the Hill Division.

When the 1601 came out of the shops again after that, the marks of authority's disapprobation were heavy upon her--the gold leaf of the passenger flyer was gone; the big figures on the tender were only yellow paint.

Regan scowled at her as they ran her into the yards.

"Damn her!" said Regan fervently; and then, as he thought of Owsley, he scowled deeper, and yanked at his mustache. "Say," said Regan heavily, "it's queer, ain't it? Blamed queer--h'm--when you come to think of it?"

And so, while the 1601, disfranchised, went to hauling extra freights, kind of a misfit doing spare jobs, anything that turned up, no regular run any more, Owsley, kind of a misfit, too, without any very definite duties, because there wasn't anything very definite they dared trust him with, went up on the Elk River work with Bill McCann, the husband of Mrs. McCann, who kept the short-order house.

Owsley told McCann, as he had told Regan, that he was only up there getting strong again for the 1601--and he went around on the construction work whistling and laughing like a schoolboy, and happy as a child--getting strong again for the 1601!

McCann couldn't see anything very much the matter with Owsley--except that Owsley was happy. He studied the letter Regan had sent him, and watched the engineer, and scratched at his bullet head, and blinked fast with his gray Irish eyes.

"Faith," said McCann, "it's them that's off their chumps--not Owsley. Hark to him singin' out there like a lark! An', bedad, ut's mesilf'll tell 'em so!'"

And he did. He wrote his opinion in concise, forceful, misspelled English on the back of a requisition slip, and sent it to Regan. Regan didn't say much--just choked up a little when he read it. McCann wasn't strong on diagnosis.